Hello and Happy New Year!
Things have been beyond busy for us over the summer, with a lot of very interesting things happening. Take care to read this carefully, so we can get you off to the best possible start to the school year.
In this update:
- Help: ABC & Tuition Note
- Lessons Start Tuesday, September 5th.
- Update Your Homework Post Emails
- Schedule Changes (Natalia & Peter)
- Rhythm Kids
Help: ABC & Tuition
Music Lessons, Classes, and Groups are a premium service, and we are focused on delivering the highest possible quality with the greatest value for your spending. You can help us to keep tuition costs reasonable. For anyone not registered by September 4th (Labour Day) there will be a modest increase of 2.5%. If you are already registered, this increase will take effect for lessons after June 30th, 2018. If you are not registered yet, then make sure you get registered before the end of the Long Weekend!
This means that 30, 45, and 60 minute lessons will change by the following:
- 30 Minutes from $42.97 to $44.04
- 45 Minutes from $53.72 to $55.06
- 60 Minutes from $64.47 to $66.08
This is under $2 per lesson, and a maximum increase of $6.30 per month.
How to Help Keep Fees Down, Pay Less
There are 3 ways to help keep your fees down, and for you to pay less.
ONE: Refer one or more new families to ABC. Each year you can refer a new family to ABC. When you do, you get 20% off until the end of June off your most expensive lesson. Your friend gets it off ALL of their lessons. You can do this as many times as you want within a school year, it’s unlimited! Want to take this to the next level? Post the 20% offer on FB for your friends. As long as they say your name, you’ll both get the discount. Remember, we teach people from birth through retirement!
TWO: Leave us a 5-star review on Google, or Facebook, or Yelp (only if you are a regular Yelp user, or they’ll think you are a spammer). This helps us get more new families, which helps with the famous ‘economies of scale’, which just means our expenses look a lot lower when we have more students.
THREE: If you pay by credit card, consider switching to Void Cheque or PAP form. Credit cards are expensive to process, and cost us many thousands of dollars to process. The Cheque and PAP form are vastly more cost-effective and help us to serve a wider range of families.
If this is particularly uncomfortable for your family, please call us.
Lessons Begin September 5th
Your lesson will begin on or after this time. The scheduling system should send you a confirmation reminder 2 days before. You can also use your email address to log into our scheduling system to see your booking.
Download the Annual Teaching Dates Calendar for your fridge now, as well.
Update Your Homework Post Emails
If you are changing teachers this fall, you will need to go to the Teacher Page for your new teacher and sign up for their homework posts. You can unsubscribe from your previous teachers’ posts by clicking the ‘unsubscribe’ link at the bottom of the last post email you received, or any future email you receive for that teacher. We have been updating our software in this area, so you may need to return to the teacher page after a few days.
Schedule Changes
We’ve had a few last minute changes in personnel and schedule. We will be updating you as soon as possible about the changes, and appreciate your patience.
Natalia – Natalia will be gone at the end of August, and chasing down a teaching job in Malaysia, hard on the heels of her finishing her Master’s in Education this spring.
Peter – Peter has had an increased professional workload and will be gone at the end of September at the latest.
Rhythm Kids
By now, many of you have received brochures, emails, and phone calls about our new Rhythm Kids Classes. These classes are in two levels for kids 4 years through Grade 2 and we consider them to be an excellent and age-appropriate means of building musical skills in children. They include drumming, dancing, movement, games, and more. Visit the page on our website for more information, and help us spread the word by sharing the Rhythm Kids page with friends or on social media.
Have a Great Year!
We are super excited this year, not just because there are so many great things going on, but because this is our 15th year. It is gratifying to have been serving the musical needs of families and people for this time, and a privilege. We have also now been around long enough that we can look in the near future and begin to imagine our earliest students bringing their own children to ABC for lessons. What what?!?! Pretty amazing.
Thank you, on behalf of the whole team, for choosing us, and helping us to fulfil our mission: To Save Music.